October 26: Following the three
Gore-Bush debates, the first of which losing the ratings battle to the debut of
FOX’s Dark Angel series.
Ooooo! Scary
Presidential debates! In 3-D!
So I’m watching the presidential
debates, unlike 98% of the viewing audience, which instead preferred to watch
baseball, Dark Angel, or 90 minutes of static. As usual, viewers complained
that the debates were boring. But these debates were far more exciting than
those of 1996...although I admit that’s like comparing the tastes of conola oil
and motor oil.
The first debate was a solid
victory for Gore, who overshadowed Bush so much that it took several
examinations of the video tape to ascertain that Bush had, in fact, showed up.
And the only evidence that Bush even said anything was provided by Gore, who
kept sighing as if Bush were an eight-year-old child, instead of a 52-year-old
governor who merely has the reading level of an eight-year-old.
Gore stole the show in two ways.
The first was his ability to lie as if truth distortion were an Olympic event:
“Not only have we balanced the budget and reduced crime, but I once put eight
golf balls in my mouth at one time. These are not my figures, these are the
governor’s!” The second was the massive use of rouge on his cheeks, which made it
appear as if he were debating Mayor McCheese on how best to handle the
Hamburglar.
Gore’s apparent strategy was to
repeat everything several times as if voters suffered from some mass attention
deficit disorder. I suspect that if you ran a computer program to condense
Gore’s pitch into a single sentence, it would probably read like this: “The top
1% of taxpayers should be put in a lock box to preserve prescription drugs for
our environment’s children.” Bush’s
performance can be summed up by the byword of his campaign: “Duh.”
The next debate was the VP
debate, which I’ll quickly summarize and then move on:
Lieberman: Blah blah God blah family blah blah mother-in-law joke
that bombed blah.
Cheney: Yakkity yak military yakkity taxes yak yak I sort of look
like everyone’s physics teacher yak.
For the next two debates, Bush
used an interesting (and surprisingly successful) strategy: Find out what
issues the public likes and then pretend to support those issues, too. Consider
this exchange, complete with Bush’s omissions in brackets:
Gore: I support hate crimes legislation. [“I need the black vote.”]
Bush: I agree with the vice-president. [“Except I don’t.”]
Lehrer (almost incredulously): You agree with the vice-president on
hate crimes? [“Who are you trying to s**t?!”]
Bush: Sure! We have them in Texas! [“Except I opposed the statute
tooth and nail, until it looked sure to pass; then I merely opposed extending
it to cover homosexuals and told supporters that they were wasting my time and
theirs by lobbying me for my support.”]
Lehrer: Anything to add, Mr. Vice-president?
Gore: Please like me.
It was seen as a solid victory
for Bush, perhaps because of Gore’s strategy of wanting to look friendlier.
Viewers were especially put off by his attempt to French-kiss Jim Lehrer.
Shocking as it may seem, Gore
changed his personality again for the third debate; whereas Bush continued with
his new strategy of denial, such as when he was asked if were “proud” of his
record of executions in Texas: “No, sir, I’m not proud of any record.” [“And
nor should I be! Although I do brag about it every chance I get, and I even
went as far as to mock the pleas of a condemned woman. Lordie, how I love it
when they squeal!”]
Bush, on the question of
affirmative action: “I’m not for it if it means quotas-- I’m for affirmative
access!” [“Okay, even I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about now.”]
But Bush’s lowest point had to
be...and as Dave Barry says, I swear I’m not making this up...when Bush looked at
the voters and said, “This election is about who can get things done! It’s not about issues, or whose plan is
better!” I suppose that’s true; if elections were about merit, he’d be changing
oil instead of drilling for it.
Gore’s strategy this time was to
remind everyone that he served in Vietnam and Bush did not, even if it meant
cramming unrelated subjects together: “You know, when I was a reporter in
Vietnam, I thought a lot about voter apathy and farm subsidies.” Gore launched
several subtle attacks on Bush, at one point sneaking up behind Bush in an
apparent attempt to goose him. Everyone went back to disliking Gore, which
meant that the third debate was a solid victory.
So those of you who missed the
debates missed a great season. Of course, it’s silly to talk about who “won” or
“lost” a debate. Debates are about the exchanging of ideas, and to treat them
as if they were sporting events is degrading to the foundation of democracy...oh,
whom am I kidding? Gore won, scoring 6 to 5 in overtime.
I’m done.